Topic: When quoting small amounts of bitcoin, how do you call 100 satoshis? - page 7. (Read 8395 times)

If I was advertising to people who are new to Bitcoin I would say 100 satoshis because it sounds like a lot.

There's no reason you cannot say, "that will be 2 bits and 53 cents". After all, "cent" refers to 100s and is in the common english vernacular.

And R2D221 I understand your point, and I completely agree. We could simply call it something else. Then the question is, does a unit of "mike" have a contextual reference in the world of "bitcoin"?

Per diction, these are my *personal* suggestions:

0.00000001 BTC = "1 bitcent", or even "1 satoshi" because the name is already established. Similar to how $0.01 is both referred to as "1 cent" or even "1 penny".

0.000000100 BTC = 1 bit = "1 bit"

1.00000000 BTC = "1 Bitcoin", or "1 coin", or "holy crap, an ENTIRE (bit)coin???"

And i'll agree once again, whether the name is "bits" or "mikes" or "r2d2's", whatever name it is should be related to, and contextually understood as being related to, bitcoin as the BTC (or XBT) currency.

I agree that we only need 2 units of measure, but in this case the decimal is placed 6 spots too far to the left.

a Big Mac meal costs about $7
At $325 per bitcoin that big mac meal costs .02153846 bitcoin.
Someday in the future, at $3250 per bitcoin it will cost .00215384
Our children might be paying .00021538

The more its worth, the less sense the curent system is going to make. We need to move the decimal.

We really do not need a special name. Having too many names for various units of measure for bitcoin will only confuse people and will likely slow adoption and slow down the time it takes for someone to pay from the time they are presented with a price to when a TX is sent as people will spend additional time calculating how much to send.

Remember that with dollars, there are only two units of measure, dollars and cents

It is because people are familiar with having a unit of currency that can be used for everyday purchases, but in some cases broken down even farther to be precise. $1 = 100 cents.

In the future bitcoin will be worth so much, that we will be buying items in stores with fractions of a bitcoin. .001 - .000001 range.  Imagine buying a new computer chair tomorrow and being asked for 20999 cents? No, the chair is 210 dollars. The cents are simply irrelevant in larger purchases. Because of this, we need an alternate unit to be used when satoshis don't matter.

I agree with most of your posting. Except I don't understand the red part.

Would you care to elaborate: Do we really need a special name for 100 satoshis, instead of just calling it... "100 satoshis"?

I'd like to coin Centoshi for 100 Satoshi. 

i am always using the satoshi term, rest are a little bit confusing for ppl who is not related to those terms, you know, those terms can be misleading and confusing.


so my vote is for 100 satoshis.

thats top down.. people prefer bottom up
no one uses 'deci' dollar, instead thy use:

nickel=5cents
dime=10cents
quater=25cents

no one uses microtonnes, instead thy use:

ounces
grams

milli and micro are for th scienc and maths community, satoshi, bits, finneys would be for the social (average joe) community.

It should be used the standard international prefix, which is:

deci   d   0.1
centi   c   0.01
milli   m   0.001
micro     μ   0.000001

in the dollar world no one says "zero point zero one dollars" thus the whole decimal system DOES need a common name for the small stuff.
some say penny some say cent.

after all small gold measures are not measures in millitonnes or microtonnes. they are measured in grams and ounces. so far the main buzz words are 'bit' and then 'finney'

i personally say 'bit', even though right now its still hard to do a single transaction of a 'bit' unless its part of a multisend. thus not everyone is using it as a common place name or decided their preference, due to their lack of personal need to. but as bitcoin continues to develop and coins begin to spread amongst more adopters the need for a small measure name will increase.

but one thing is for sure, seeing a faucet advertised as "giving free bitcoins" yet the reality being dust(random decimal) amounts is bad and i would have to say in that scenario it would be advantageous to use a term to describe smaller measure would benefit the OP now

i use the term dust(random decimal) or sats(precise decimal) if the amount is not exactly in increments of 0.00000100. just like people dont say that $0.56 is 11 nickels and 1 cent. or 5 dimes and 6 cent, they simply say 56cents.

so there is still a need for "satoshi's" but a name for 100 sats is also needed. and i think for long term understanding and future-proofing peoples comfort zones a bottom up (satoshi -> bitcoin) is easier to manage rather than a top down (bitcoin -> satoshi) as no one wants to be saying "Point Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh One Oh Oh Bee Tee Cee" as it sounds more like something you would say in bed, not a shop

so satoshi's, bits/finneys, other measures can all work happily together. alot better that the 'oh oh oh oh' orgasm screams, that people find harder to measure with so many zero's

This explanation is still just about the benefits of using 0.000001 as the base unit. In all this explanation, there's no reason why the name couldn't be “mikes” with the same level of clarity.

Ah ok, I think I can help you find that connection. Let's use all digits to describe an amount in "Bitcoin":

0.12345678

How many "bits" is this? Given that there are a *total* of this many currency units:

12,345,678

These are the actual (and current) non-divisible, *functional* amount of units -- described today as "satoshi". Therefore:

0.12345678 Bitcoin = 12,345,678 satoshi

Where do we get "bits"? Let's only allow a maximum of 2 digits past the decimal point. To do this, divide the smallest units by 100, and we will call this new decimal placement the "bit" unit. "bits" as the plural version:

12,345,678 satoshi / 100 = 123,456.78 bits

So you might ask yourself, "wait... how many bits is in a bitcoin then? "

1.23456789 BTC = 1 million and 234,567.89 bits.

So basically, everything past the decimal point of the BTC unit is the "number of thousands" of bits. For example:

0.435 BTC = 435,000 bits.

I've only actually run through a process like this with maybe a couple dozen people: everyone gets it; however, 1 person sticks in my mind as very insecure about their math ability and skeptical to whether or not they'll figure it out on their own. Others could have felt this way, too. Anyhoo, I hope this explanation helps, and I hope it inspires others as a way to teach people about "Bitcoin" and "bits". I say we just use bits ... your common person rarely transactions 1 BTC worth in a single transaction (today about 340 USD) ... unless they're in the USA buying a new television that they saved up for

(edit: added unit amount missing)


this is hardly a reason not to use a unit called "bit" because it's all about context. (If you understand more than one language, you'll realize how important context is.) For example, if I ask you to pay me 2500 bits for a can of Coca Cola, you *know* I'm not asking you to send me 312.5 bytes of information. It's pretty obvious because of the context.

Besides, using the "bit" unit is all about interfacing with your *common* person. The reality is, your common person has no idea that 8 bits is 1 byte. Your common person has no idea what a byte is.... and people who *do* know what a bit (in the byte context) is, they're smart enough to figure out that "bit" can have a financial context.

To sum it up: what unit should we use to *help* the common person? After all, it is the entirety of the common people that will determine bitcoin's fate. I'll let my intellect take an ego stab *any* day if it means Bitcoin will be used by more people... so obviously, I vote "bits"

In my opinion, the first of the two polls that you've quoted is not biased.


However, looking at the polls from that time, I'm now puzzled to see that none of them offered the option "100 satoshis".

...why did no one come up with that idea?

The most biased of them all

Biased polls are biased. From all of them, “bits” is the least bad, not precisely the best.

That explains having a unit (whatever name the unit has) with two decimal places. However, I still can't see the connection with specifically “bits” with specifically “0.000001”.

Thanks for your comments!



Yes, in general, this would be the best idea.

However, my users won't sign-up: I want to remove this entry barrier.
Instead, I intend to integrate with microwallet.org, such that users' payouts are sent to microwallet, where they can accumulate.

No sign-up means that I'll have to find one choice that's accepted by everyone.


Yes, I consider making a footnote or tool-tip.
A part of the purpose of this topic is to find out how far these units are understood and how much an explainer is needed.

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I really like your ideas in this thread!

Keep 'em comin'!

There it is. A little different than i remembered.

My thinking is that if we go with the bit, the satoshis become the "cents" to the bit. Bit just makes sense to me. Its easy to say, and its a "just a bit" of a bitcoin.

If we dont migrate down and make the 100 satoshi unit the new standard very soon, society will be forced to relearn the new unit of measure every few years because when the price doubles or triples we will start dropping decimal places.

If i go online and see a computer for sale for 4,600 satoshis, I can compare that to a tank of fuel that may cost 900 satoshis and get a sense of value. .00004600 is just difficult to compare to .00000900  because of all the decimal places.

I think you're after this.